Eurotrip 2K13: Budapest, Hungary

For the first stop of our first 10-day break, we headed to Budapest, Hungary! We had quite the journey getting to Budapest: waking up at 3:30 am to catch our 4:30 am train to get to Milan for our 8:30 am flight.

View of the Alps from the plane

Thankfully we made it to our hostel in Budapest, and loved our hostel. It was so cute and colorful, we met a lot of friends from all over the world, and the staff was really helpful.

For lunch we ate at a restaurant next door called the Hummus Bar.

After lunch we headed to the Pig Festival/Market down the street. They had live pigs for sale, live music, lots of meat and other food, lots of fur, little flea market trinkets, etc.

That night we went out with my friend Caitlin’s friend from home who was studying in Budapest and her friends. It was really fun to go out with other Americans besides the ones that we are with 24/7! We went to a bar/club called Okert.

On Saturday morning at 10:45 we went on a tour of Budapest. We got to see both sides, Buda and Pest. Our tour guide was a nice Hungarian woman in her mid-30’s who taught us a lot. I learned a lot about Hungary’s role in WWII and their time under Communist rule while seeing all the main spots of Budapest.

After the tour we headed to the big indoor Central Market for some food and shopping. I had some authentic food for lunch, stuffed paprika. They love paprika there. My friend got stuffed cabbage (another Hungarian favorite) and the other girls got goulash.

After all that Hungarian food, we were craving something American for dinner. So naturally we found a restaurant that is probably the closest thing we will find to Chipotle out here. It’s called Burrita, and I got a delicious burrito from there. Made me miss Chipotle even more.

That night we went to a big club called Instant. It has 23 bars, 6 clubs, 3 dance floors, 2 open gardens and more. Sunday morning we woke up and Caitlin’s friend walked us around the Pest side again. It was cool to see it again because then I really felt like I had a knowledge of my surroundings. Also it was snowing so that made it fun, especially because it was PERFECT packing snow. You know what that means…

After walking around we headed back to the pig festival to grab some lunch. I got another authentic Hungarian food, langos. It is a sort of salty fried dough, and I got mine filled with sausage and cheese, and they put sour cream on top. It was an interesting food, the bread was tasty, I’m glad I tried it. Then we headed inside St. Steven’s Basilica and saw the beautiful architecture.

Then we headed to the Szechenyi thermal bath. It was so cool! It’s the largest medicinal bath in Europe and its water is supplied by two thermal springs. There are 12 different baths (3 or 4 outside and the rest inside). The outdoor ones were my favorite, especially because it was snowing! So we would be getting hit by snow but be so comfortable swimming in the warm water. There was steam everywhere so you could barely see 6 feet in front of you, it was really cool. Also one of the baths had a whirlpool which we had way too much fun in.

After the baths I tried my first goulash soup which I really enjoyed. This one tasted like vegetable soup with beef (I had it again in Germany and it tasted different, but still really good).

For our last night in Budapest, we decided to go to a really nice dinner. The restaurant was beautiful with indoor and screened outdoor seating. There were lights everywhere and we sat on a leather sofa surrounding a round table. I got a caesar salad to start (I’ve missed these) and then got a house pasta that ended up being like big tortellini filled with herbs and cheese in a mushroom/ham cream sauce. So good! Considering it was pretty expensive though, Jackie and I got dessert somewhere else (we split a nutella cupcake).